Case Study In Organizational Behavior Employee Motivation part 1

Case Study in Organizational Behavior, Employee Motivation (1) Nowadays, it is practically impossible to guarantee commercial institution staying competitive, on the part of those who are responsible for designing employment policies, unless they understand how to motivate workers. Long gone are the times when good salary alone served as the best incentive, when it would come to increasing employees professional effectiveness. Today, people who apply to get hired, expect to have not just their physical needs to be properly addressed by the future employer. They also look at the employment prospects as something that will allow them to fully realize their professional potential. This is why, it is very important to understand that workers professional adequateness depends on variety of different factors. In his article Motivating Your Staff, Patrick Forsyth provides us with the insight on what is the key to successful management: In a dynamic and pressurized workplace, time to motivate staff can seem a luxury. Surely they should be self starting? Such an assumption is dangerous.

Staff may not be sufficiently self starting and, anyway, the way they work, their knowledge, skills and attitudes can all be influenced and even good performances improved. Motivation is a key management task; it can assuredly make a difference (Forsyth).

... have to enjoy. This is a good way to motivate staff because this package is one that everyone can benefit from, ... . (download.businesscasestudies.co.uk/). Another way Tesco can continue to motivate its staff is by having good communications (mayo theory). By having ... a gym membership that staff can go to. This helps to motivate staff because by having flexible working hours, staff can work at a ...

However, even though that it might seem that knowing how to motivate employees cannot represent an overly challenging task, the truth is different. The managers without much of working experience often wonder why workers, under their supervision, do not appear as being fully focused on executing their professional duties, despite the fact that they should be happy to have a job in the first. What makes this issue being especially hard to address is the fact that increasing employees effectiveness is not the subject of standard rules and regulations. Manager do not have a legal right to apply pressure onto employee, only because it seems that he is not fully committed to his job. Therefore, every successful manager need also to be a good psychologist, in order to be able to anticipate the flow of events, rather then having to deal with their consequences, after they take place. There is no doubt that every company strives to unify the behavior of its employees, in order to make it more predictable and manageable.

However, we need to constantly keep in mind that commercial organizations main priority is making profits, while everything else comes secondary. At the same time, the main reason why people want to be hired is to be able to earn money. This gives us a clue as to what can be considered as the most effective employees incentive. For anyone who is capable of logical thinking there can be no doubt that adequate salary is the most important factor of employees motivation. Therefore, it is managers primary duty to make sure that workers never have a valid reason to complain about low salary. The practice of replacing material incentives with purely emotional ones is absolutely intolerable. For example, McDonalds workers are often required to work overtime, without being paid, because they are expected to embrace Companys corporate culture.

As a result, McDonalds turnout ratio is very high, which in its turn, negatively affects Companys reputation. The same can be said about Wal-Mart. The entry position salary at Wal-Mart is $8 an hour, which is the lowest among other retailing operators. Such salary, of course, cannot be referred to as strong enough incentive for the employees to perform their duties with dedication. However, instead of actually increasing workers salary and improving their working conditions, Wal-Marts managers try to increase employees professional efficiency by instilling them with a team spirit, which is nothing but a pathetic attempt to gain workers loyalty, without having to provide them with any benefits whatsoever. This, of course, is the best indication that Wal-Marts officials are only concerned about one thing extracting as much profit as possible at any cost.

... employee receives an incentive that can be used to furnish a home office. Management also must change the way supervisors evaluate their workers. Managers ... much of the anxiety for employees-and their managers-while providing a better gauge ... employees-salaried staff from sales, marketing, technical and customer service, including managers-to be mobile by the beginning of 1995. Its road workers ...

However, it would be wrong to suggest that adequate financial incentives alone can motivate employees to the full extent. The person, who fills out job application form, expects to prove its worth in his own eyes; therefore, he needs to be provided with carrier making opportunities. The prospects for professional advancement can be considered as the second most important motivational incentive, which cannot be overlooked. If employees do not feel that their professional value slowly increases, it might often result in them adopting a formal approach to executing their duties. Such workers will continue to show up at work, but their priority, during the work hours, can never be actually benefiting the company, as it should be. Thus, every manager needs to pay close attention to whether employees are satisfied with how organizations officials view them.

Nowadays, many companies strive to convince public that their workers are their greatest asset, however, as practice shows, such claims are being rarely supported by the factual state of affairs. The research project Future Trends in Human Resources, which can be found on the site of CPS Human Resources Services, contains valuable suggestion as to how career making opportunities are going to be viewed by employers in the future: Lower standards of academic achievement in schools will continue to produce graduates who are ill-prepared for work. It will be more often left to employers to train new hires in technical skills, especially where recruitment of trained workers is less successful (CPS).

Therefore, the prospects of professional advancement need to be discussed within a context of actually enabling commercial organization to remain competitive. By providing workers with a chance to rise through the ranks, managers also improve their professional adequateness, which is beneficial for both employer and employees. In order to enable commercial organization to operate in most effective mode, people in charge of designing employment policies need to adopt a proper managerial style.

... the culture of the organization. Furthermore, the HR manager handles employees’ conflicts. Such conflicts make the employee less productive and encourage ... field, and to find employment leads and expand their professional network. The informational interview was held on March 27, ... experience. She suggested to newcomers to start with short work opportunities (3-6 months). Additionally, she said that ...

There are two distinctive approaches may be applied, when it comes to managing workers organizational behavior authoritarian and democratic. Democratic managing style allows employees to make executive decisions in the field of their competence. Employers that practice it assume that workers are quite capable of managing themselves and that the quality of their performance does not need to be constantly checked. For example, Microsoft software designers are allowed to set up their own working schedule, for as long as it helps them to perform with utmost efficiency. They have flexible work hours; they are allowed to set up their own professional goals. While in the office, they are entitled to have as many coffee breaks as they want and even not to show up in the office at all; if they think that it is not necessary.

On the other hand, McDonalds employees salary, for example, depends on their ability to anticipate the wishes of their superiors. They are not required to come up with suggestions as to how improve their working conditions; neither they are allowed to be creative, while performing their job. Nevertheless, it would be counterproductive to begin empowering McDonalds employees, as well as it would prove to be very harmful to deprive Microsoft workers of the liberties they enjoy. In fact, there can be no standard approaches, when it comes to managing workers behavior, within organization. Organizational behavior concepts cannot be discussed in terms of being right or wrong. All that matters is whether they prove their usefulness or not. We cannot talk about employees as standard sets of individuals with burning desire to make money.

At the same time, it would be wrong to suggest that modern employees are preoccupied with celebrating their uniqueness more than with anything else, as it is being suggested by the promoters of political correctness in work place. When it comes to managing organizational behavior, we need to remember a very good old saying: if there is something stupid, which nevertheless works it is not stupid. It is fact that American society is becoming increasingly multicultural. We can argue long and hard of whether such tendency is beneficial to society as whole, but there can be no doubt that managers need to consider it, while striving to increase workers professional efficiency. Employees with different cultural backgrounds might have a hard time adjusting to their working environment, which is why it is one of managers foremost tasks to make sure that employees associate their job with emotional comfort. This can be achieved in variety of different ways.

... of working conditions. In organizations with only Chinese executives, most of employees experience an unavailability of managers, lack of encouragement to ... and Gold, 2005). This feature restrains the enthusiasm of workers to be innovative in their job in order to maximize ... motivation. Secondly, people have a set of characteristics, which makes every person unique, and it is far too complex to ...

Nevertheless, as it was being mentioned earlier, establishing racial tolerance in work place can never be thought of as social fetish. Employees need to understand that, while their cultural uniqueness is being appreciated, it can never serve as something that alone entitles them with the prospects of professional advancement. This is why skillful managers will never insist on organization adopting the affirmative action approach, when it comes to setting up hiring requirements. As practice shows, the companies that strive to gain reputation as progressive and innovative little too hard, often go bankrupt, because their managers fail to understand that workplace is not meant to be regarded as some sort of kindergarten, where addressing employees emotional needs has a priority. While the amount of natural resources in the world is limited, human resources are renewable; therefore, there can be no irreplaceable workers. Unless employees are being explained this little thesis, they will have a hard time coming to terms with reality.

It is virtually impossible to imagine a productive employee without possessing a strong sense of responsibility, therefore, it can be thought of as managers another important task to instill workers with the idea that their performance has a very practical consequences. Andrew E. Schwartz in his article Encouraging Employees Responsibility, is making very good point when he says: Managers must be willing to give subordinates freedom to make mistakes, learn from them, and try again. Managers should not, however, leave employees totally on their own and should make it clear that asking for advice will not be taken as a sign of failure (Schwartz).

... individual workers through improvements to the educational aspect. Four of the biggest influences between employees and health care organizations are ... becoming more and more stressful on employees. You absolutely need loyalty and managers and leaders can control it ... organizational value that affects employee loyalty is trust. Employees who believe that they can trust their managers, coworkers, and ...

The sense of responsibility can only be acquired by employees, if their ability to affect companys functioning, in negative or positive way, does not merely have a declarative nature. Thus, there is always some risk involved, when it comes to empowering workers, in contemporary sense of this word.

However, this is only the way of allowing them to realize their true potential. The proper functioning of commercial organization is impossible, unless employees understand that they are the subjects of organizational discipline. Therefore, the internal structure of every company is based on hierarchical principle. It is absolutely necessary for the workers to understand that they are required to obey to their superiors, otherwise the accomplishment of common goal becomes problematic. Employees do have the right not to agree with some companys policies, but under no circumstances can they be allowed to indulge in passive sabotage, as the way of expressing their protest. This is why, job applicants need to be explained, before they become hired, that their unwillingness to respect organizations discipline will not be tolerated. The article Improving Workplace Discipline Practices, which can be found on the site of AHIs Workplace Compliance Training Center, stresses out the importance of instilling workers with the sense of discipline: Addressing disciplinary issues is a reality for most managers. This can be a very sensitive and stressful process that many deal with in only a cursory manner or avoid altogether.

However, if disciplinary issues are avoided or handled poorly, it can lead to very serious problems for the organization and the individuals involved (AHI).

In recent years, the notion of organizational discipline is being discussed as the remnant of politically incorrect times, when employees did not have an understanding of their civil rights. This leads progressive experts to suggest that it is wrong to forcibly impose discipline upon workers, because it undermines the quality of their performance. However, practice shows that workers tend to slack off, if given too much liberty. Even Microsoft employees are expected to benefit the Company on daily basis and if some of them take advantage of Microsofts managerial style to adopt a formalistic approach to executing their duties, they are ….

... unbalance employee moral and work load and responsibility that can harm the organization culture. 4. Learning curve decrease Leased and temporary workers ... in employee morale. 1. Lost incentives The sense of unsecured to the job poses compared to the full time worker that ... may be an issues due to lack of sense of belonging to the organization. 8. Increase costs Requires supervisors to closely ...

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